Me, Myself, and I

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This page is the starting point for information on my various interests, hobbies, and projects. Who am I you say? (Well, if you say that, you can answer it yourself!) Now, if you actually wanted to know who the person responsible for this mess is, that's me - John Lussmyer. Some of this stuff is just me fiddling around, some might actually contain useful information. (I try hard not to let that bother me though.)

I live out on Whidbey Island in Washington state on 20 beautiful forested acres of land.

During all the construction work on the house, I've collected a variety of vehicles. Since budgets have been tight, and free time practically non-existant, the vehicles are not prime examples of beauty. More like prime examples of what NOT to own.... This list is arranged in semi-chronological order - chronological as in the order I obtained them, which has nothing to do with vehicle age.
Amazingly enough, I've been getting rid of some of the mostly dead ones! The ex-vehicles have been moved to the Retired Fleet page.

The white thing is the first vehicle I owned out here. It's a 1975 International Travelall. A good basic truck. The only problem with it is that it doesn't work. After a couple of months of odd starting and stalling problems, it just decided not to start anymore. I haven't had the time to figure out why. It's been sitting unused since 1998.

This has been one of the most useful pieces of equipment to have around. It's a 1963 (approx) Ford Industrial tractor with backhoe and front-end loader. It's had problems, and needs work, but is just too useful for words.

It was retired after the differential stripped it's gears for the 3rd time. sigh. Just too much work to keep it going. I did sell it to a guy that was going to fix it and use it though.

Shortly after the Travelall died, I picked up this 1973 Dodge 4-door utility truck. It's road commission orange, and has a 440 engine. Even though the gas mileage really stinks, it's been extremely useful. The tool boxes are a nice feature.

After commuting with the Dodge truck for a while, I decided to get something that used less gas than the average battleship. So I bought a 1979 Subaru Brat - that had once been a hybrid electric vehicle. It came with most the parts to make it run electric again - possibly a future project - But I gave up on that. The Subaru had become extremely unreliable, and had been relegated to being a self-propelled wheelbarrow for the property.

After a while, I finally realized that I was wasting about 1 hour a day waiting in line for the ferry. That's when I bought this 1976 Honda Goldwing. By riding a motorcycle, I get priority loading on the ferry and don't have to wait in line.

Since my 76 was rather high mileage and poorly maintained, I picked up a 2nd bike (77 GL1000) "just in case". This turns out to have been quite fortunate. (Actually, I've picked up several parts bikes as well.)

Since my old Honda GL1000's were getting too unreliable, I decided to get a new bike. This is a 1985 BMW K100RT with 25,000 miles on it. (Of course the miles went up quickly! :-) This was totaled when my shop burned in 2006 - one of the firetrucks backed into it while turning around.

I needed something to reach the top edge of my house, roof of shop, etc.. So I picked up this thing. It worked ok, but I eventually decided it was just too big, so I replaced it with a van-sized bucket truck.

This was the Sparrow I bought after the Shop Fire burned the other 2. It was a lot of fun, but my job had moved to be just a bit too far away. Even with my little 2KW genset range extender, I couldn't make it too work. sigh.

While I had it, I really should have gotten a leather jacket with all the metal studs on it....

This is my current prime people mover vehicle. It is a 85 Mercedes 300D that is in excellent condition. It almost makes me want to commute in it instead of riding the bike every day. (note that I said "almost" :-) This is by far the most reliable vehicle in the fleet.

These are all my Pets. I have an unusual assortment of Animals. In fact, so unusual that I am USDA licensed so that I can exhibit them, and bring tours and groups in to see them. (Well, there are a few "normal" pets sprinkled in as well...)

This is my youngest Cougar, and the only one that I've raised from a kitten. She is the one that has a cage in my living room, with a "cat door" to a large outdoor enclosure. This picture is of me sitting with her on the deck in her outdoor enclosure.

I took in this old guy when he needed a new home. (Previous owner could no longer care for him.) He has a cage in my basement, with an enclosed "run" across the ceiling to an outdoor cage with 2 levels. As he's aged, and become more used to me, he has gotten quite friendly, and just loves for me to scratch him though the fence. He is still a bit excitable however, so I do have to be careful.

This old girl came to me when her previous owner ran into legal problems and had to get rid of her cats. Jasmine is blind in both eyes, but gets along quite well, as long as things don't change in her cage much. She lives with a young 1/2 Bengal domestic cat, they get along quite well and spend a lot of time curled up together.

Eiger came to me from a friend who could no longer give him the care he needed. Eiger is blind in one eye, and has developed rather severe arthritis, so he is on medication for it, and has a heater in his house. He has become a wonderfully friendly old guy, and just loves to sit with me and be petted.

Tiva came with Eiger, and is within a week of the same age. She is a nice girl, but tends to get somewhat agressively playful, so I just have to be a bit more careful when i'm in the cage with her. She loves tummy rubs, and getting brushed.

I received Homer (and Craiger) from a couple that loved their animals, but had a problem neighbor. The neighbor had recently moved in next door, and proceeded to try and drive the animals crazy (noises, flashing lights at night) or kill them (puddles of green liquid found near the cages).

This was somewhat traumatic for Homer, as they had raised him from a kitten. He seems to have settled in nicely, and just loves attention. Purring loudly whenever anyone is near.

Due to legal complications, Craiger lost his home as a very young kitten. While it was being determined by authorities whether or not he could be released into the wild, he was maintained in a hands off environment. Once it was determined he could not be released and would remain in captivity, he was past the age where he could quickly and easily bond with humans. He is friendly and loving, though shy and somewhat dangerous with his claws. With an experienced handler he can be quite loving.

Gunner is a big goofball of a mutt. We aren't sure what his parentage is other than "dog". The main reason that I got him was to keep the Cougars entertained, which he does quite well. He runs up and down his 200' cable run between their cages. He does seem to be rather intelligent, and it's been quite difficult coming up with a harness and cable system that he can't get out of.

Radio is a very nice dog that used to belong to a friends daughter. The daughter moved out, and couldn't take the dog, he had way too many pets. Radio is friendly and does not go running off, so she doesn't need to be tethered. Her main duty is to also entertain the cougars, which she does by circling the cages for hours on end. She also keeps Gunner company.

I've had two major accomplishments in my life and am seeking a third. The first was when I ran a marathon of more than 26 miles. The second was passing a comprehensive examination to become certified as an assessor for the automobile industry quality system. The third is to geta question published in your column. Here is another effort at that: Can you read this equation as a poem?

Clever Scam - taking advantage of older men
Women often receive warnings about protecting themselves at the mall and in dark parking lots, etc. This is the first warning I have seen for men. I wanted to pass it on in case you haven't heard about it. This will only become more commonplace as the weather warms.

This was my first Corbin Sparrow, purchased relatively cheap off Ebay. I had to replace the batteries (of course) when I got it, but it did work quite well. I used it to commute 27 miles each way to work. (I could charge at work.) That's when I found that 27 miles each way at highway speeds "uses up" a battery pack pretty fast. It was only about 3 months before the batteries could no longer get me to work.

This Sparrow I got for "free" after it had a fire. I helped the owner with his insurance claim and got the car for shipping costs. What had happened was that one of the front battery cables had rubbed on the battery hold down bracket and shorted to it. Since this was a later Sparrow with a non-isolated pack, this shorted the pack.

Since the Zivan charger is prone to overcharge the batteries, I bought a set of Rudman Regulator MKII's from Manzanita Micro and installed them. These are bypass regulators that will bypass current around a battery if it has reached full charge. Each regulator has a pair of very useful LED's on them. A green one to show that the regulator is bypassing current (i.e. the battery is charged), and a red one that shows when a battery drops below a set voltage. (Showing it's getting too low, and you shouldn't be driving more on it! Mine are set to 10V.)

Since Optima YT's have problems with cold weather, I decided to install a battery heater system in my Sparrow. I didn't want a super complex or expensive system, and I had to fit it into the existing battery boxes - which have very little extra space.

My heater fan was very anemic. At first I thought the fan was bad, but after pulling the dash and doing some testing, I found that the air intake was poor. The normal air intake comes through a 2" tube from the 2 little grills on the front of the car. In my case the tube had been cut too long, and nearly touched the bottom of the plenum, so very little air could get through. I fixed that by cutting the tube a little shorter. (sorry, no pictures) After taking the heater off, it's just to the right inside the hole.

The bearings on the rear axle failed, so I had to rebuild the axle. This was NOT easy, as getting the axle apart can be quite difficult. I had a local machine shop do it for me, as I didn't have the tools. Following are pictures of all the parts.

On 5/6/2002 I made a rather dumb mistake while driving my Sparrow home. I let the car go too fast down my driveway. I think I should describe my driveway. It is about 700' long, and this part is downhill (steep enough that coasting gains quite a bit of speed), curved, tilted, dirt and gravel, with a significant grassy hump in the middle. So when I noticed the Sparrow was going too fast, I applied the brakes. (Should I mention that it had been raining so the grass was very slippery, and the dirt was mud?) Applying the brakes was a mistake.

I've also picked up a 20' flatbed trailer which has been quite useful for getting lumber and other large items. (and for delivering non-functioning vehicles to the shop - sigh.) This picture also shows the old B17 Engine Hoist I picked up cheap. (lying on it's side.)

1955 Dodge 5yd dumptruck, I ended up getting this after I figured out how much it was going to cost to have the zillion yards of fill dirt delivered. Since the gravel pit is about 5 miles down the road, this truck will pay for itself after about 30 loads.

The big white thing has been referered to as the Great White Whale. It is a 1973 GMC citybus that has been converted to a motorhome. I drove it out here from Michigan, and it's been extremely useful as a construction shack.

This one may look familiar to many people. It's a 198? bluebird 40' schoolbus. This was my moving van and main storage unit since I left Michigan. It gets lousy mileage (about 4 miles/gallon), but is good storage. (Especially since I removed almost all the seats.)

This is the house that John built. My friend, Dave Belt, helped a LOT, as he had worked as a construction contractor years ago. The house is a log home - built using fake logs! Each "log" is a Glu-Lam beam that is about 8" thick, outside curved like a log, inside is flat for a wall, top and bottom and tounge and groove for a nice well-sealed fit. This took about 2 1/2 years to "finish" (a house is never really done...).

This is the house we built for Mom. She was getting to the age where she needed someone near, so she moved out here to her own house on my property. It's a modular that we had built to match my house. It's about 200' from mine.

The original shop building I put up was a 42'x60' quonset hut building. This was a LOT of work to build, but the kit was relatively inexpensive. The biggest problem I had with it was that it was pretty much impossible to insulate, so it was COLD working in the winter in there.

This was the first building actually built here. All the utilities were brought to the shed before branching out to all the other buildings. This meant that I had water, phone, and power during construction!

After giving up on the Ladder truck, I bought this Boom Truck. Much easier to work with. Of course, I'm still repairing it, as it had a problem with the boom wiring and the previous owner tried to fix it himself. Most of the repairs have been undoing his fixes.

This has been a wonderful help for my mom around here. It's small, maneuverable, and quiet. She does a lot of hauling loads of brush she's cleared down to the fire pit with this thing. It's also good for taking the garbage can out to the road, as that is a 900' trip.

This is one of 2 of these I bought from Boeing Surplus, this one was the easiest to get working again. (replace batteries). It's been very useful for hauling tools, lumber, etc... around the place. Mom occaisionally uses it when she wants to move brush that doesn't fit on the Golf Cart easily.

This page is the starting point for information on my various interests, hobbies, and projects. Who am I you say? (Well, if you say that, you can answer it yourself!) Now, if you actually wanted to know who the person responsible for this mess is, that's me - John Lussmyer. Some of this stuff is just me fiddling around, some might actually contain useful information. (I try hard not to let that bother me though.)

I live out on Whidbey Island in Washington state on 20 beautiful forested acres of land.